


Seventh Front

by zeteram



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Battle of Six Fronts, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, it's pretty one-sided though cause osiris is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeteram/pseuds/zeteram
Summary: The Battle of Six Fronts is over, but Osiris has stretched himself too thin and Saint tries to help.
Relationships: Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 91





	Seventh Front

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by The Pigeon and the Phoenix lorebook.

“There is an incoming transmission from Sagira,” Geppetto told Saint-14 on their private channel.

“I will be just one moment,” he told her quietly, and made his excuses to the crowd. The post-battle meeting had turned into an impromptu party, to no one’s surprise, and it was quite easy to lose track of time. Osiris had disappeared almost immediately after he’d delivered his report, and Saint had assumed he’d gone to sleep off his fatigue. He’d looked exhausted.

“Osiris!” he said into the radio line, once he’d come to a quiet street. “We missed you at the party. If you are still awake, you should come. It is good to celebrate victory.”

“Actually,” piped Sagira’s voice back, “it’s just me. Osiris _is_ still awake, and that’s the problem. I’ve never seen him drained down to the dregs like this before. Do you think you could meet us here?”

“I am on my way,” he replied immediately, buoyant mood vanishing and already jogging toward her location ping.

“Good,” she said. “You’re the first person I can think of that wouldn’t make him worse. The door’s already keyed to you. Don’t make too much noise when you get in.”

“That is not reassuring me, Saigra,” he growled under his breath. It was only a few minutes’ walk to the quarters Osiris had claimed for himself, but Saint got there in under one. He took a moment to catch his breath and closed his eyes, centering himself. Whatever was going on with Osiris, Sagira wanted him there as someone who wouldn’t make the situation worse, and that meant he had to be calm. Once he was, he let himself in.

There had been power available in the City for some time now, but Osiris still preferred the warm yellow glow of candlelight in his workspaces - or perhaps he liked the scent of the wax, or the flicker of a flame. It was hard to tell, because Osiris didn’t talk about himself much, but Saint liked it. The battle had lasted through the night and into the next morning, so it was day, but Saint had still expected more of the candles to be lit. That most of the candles were out would have been a worrying sign on its own even if he hadn’t been called over to help. Saint frowned, but Sagira floated in from one of the other rooms and sighed in relief. “Good. Hi. Come on.”

He exhaled a short laugh at her brevity and called out, following. “Osiris? It is Saint-14.”

“Saint,” he heard Osiris’s voice, sounding faint, and in the study Sagira showed him into he saw Osiris sitting down in a corner next to a warm pool of light; not all the candles had gone out. He _did_ look exhausted, and Saint made a _tch_ noise as he knelt down next to him and took his hand. It felt cooler than he expected.

“I am here,” he said gently. “My friend, why are you not in bed? You are stretched thin enough to snap.” _Exhausted_ wasn’t even half of what he looked. _Vacant_ was more like it, and Saint didn’t like that one bit. Osiris usually burned like a beacon, fiercer and hotter than anyone else around him.

“If I sleep, my allies will fall. The walls will not hold. I am needed,” Osiris replied, eyes unfocused.

Saint squeezed his hand and tried to instill his own voice with a confidence unmarred by worry for his friend. “The battle is over, Osiris. We won because we held where the walls did not. _You_ held us when we wavered.” It had been a majestic sight: dozens of flame-bearing Reflections appearing where they were needed most, holding just long enough for other fireteams to rally, slashing fiery swords through the melee like meteors from above. It had given them heart as well as physical protection, and Saint-14 had felt a surge of pride for his friend then. It was still there now, but tempered by a real concern: if Osiris was still fighting the battle, had he been lost in a different way?

“I could not hold you all. Some were lost,” Osiris said with a halfhearted snap as if to reply directly to Saint’s thought. It had a contrarian effect of reassuring Saint, though. If Osiris could still argue, he was still himself.

“And more were saved,” he replied firmly. “Is that why you are upset? Because you could not singlehandedly eradicate an entire army of Fallen? Even you cannot have that much of an ego, my friend.”

Osiris exhaled, and his expression went from neutrality to a grieving sadness. “I do know that, my friend. Yet all I see is them falling, over and over again until there is only blackness. If I had been stronger, it would not have happened. If I had foreseen the attack in more detail, it could have been prevented.” He held up the hand that Saint hadn’t captured and turned it around in front of his eyes, still looking unfocused. “I cannot tell that it is over. I spent so much looking out of dozens of pairs of eyes that I cannot verify what is in front of my own. I do not--” He frowned, looking for words. “I do not feel myself.”

“That is a problem,” Saint said quietly. He thought about it for a bit, armored fingers lightly dancing over Osiris’s palm. “May I try to help?”

“How?” It was curious, not accusatory, so Saint shrugged.

“I am an Exo. Sometimes we look at our bodies and we know, this is not natural. We were not meant to be like this. And we must anchor ourselves or we will shut down. It has not happened to any of the Risen I know of, but maybe it happened to me and that is why I am Saint-14 and not Saint-7 or Saint-3.” He hadn’t met anyone lower than 3 before, but perhaps they were out there somewhere. Also, Osiris was looking intrigued, which meant he had some modicum of focus back. That was good.

At Osiris’s hesitant nod, Saint had Geppetto vanish his armor and put him in loose working clothes instead. There were enough exercises that required tactile input that armor was an impediment, even if by now he was more used to it than anything else. “I will need to have your hand. Will you take off your gauntlet?” Osiris looked almost suspicious, but it seemed there was still enough trust even in his exhausted state to feel safe around Saint; with a gesture he banished both gauntlets and Saint took the right hand, turning it palm up and beginning to trace a simple spiral with his index finger. “We start with your senses. Your body, it is a vessel for the mind and the Light and the self. And you feel now like those are not connected?”

Osiris sat up a little straighter. “What you call mind and Light and self are simply consciousness to me; they are the same.” Good, lecture-mode Osiris was much closer to his usual self than vacant-eyes Osiris.

He tapped his finger to the center of Osiris's palm and restarted the spiral going in the opposite direction. “Your body and your mind, they connect with your senses. Each time you feel something, or hear it or smell it, that is your mind and your body working in harmony. Yes?”

Osiris frowned. “I see the northern front, wavering under the Devils' banner. I hear the sound of a dozen guns and the screams of our people as they fall.”

“Memories only,” Saint said, a bit sharper than he'd intended. “You are here now, inside the walls, and the battle is over.” His voice softened. “You are here with me. If there was still a fight, would I be here with you or out there?”

Osiris blinked. “You…would be there. You run toward the crack in the walls, not away from it.” He reached over with his left hand to squeeze Saint's wrist lightly and Saint smiled. “As do I.”

Some people looked at prickly, erudite Osiris and wondered why Saint was so determined to be his friend. It was true that on the surface they were as different as two Guardians could get, and yet during the starless night of the Fallen onslaught, every time Saint looked up he saw Osiris's golden-winged form raining down Solar flame to shield their people, taking blow after blow for them. Saint had made it through the battle without a single death; he'd seen Osiris take dozens. If that wasn’t reason enough to like the man, he didn’t know what was.

“Then feel that I am here.” As he spoke, Saint pressed simple patterns into Osiris’s hands - the spiral from before, a circle, a triangle. Each was designed to make the recipient pay attention to the physical sensation and focus on it. “Listen to my voice. Touch my hands with yours. Look at me with your eyes.” Those eyes were still only half here, dark and hurt and hesitant and achingly beautiful in their usually-fierce gaze. The other half, the one Saint was trying to reach, was still caught in the events of the previous--how long had it been? A day and a night and part of another day giving everything they had without rest. No wonder Osiris was spent. If not for the Light bolstering them, they would all have fallen early on.

And so to the basic steps, he added another. The Light welled up in him, nearly pure but for a tinge of his favored Void, and Saint offered it to Osiris where their hands were linked. “Feel my Light. I am here with you.” It was just a touch, no more than he would use to revive a downed companion, but Osiris hissed and clutched at Saint's hands intensely. He immediately stopped the influx and would have dropped his hands if not for that tight grip. “I am sorry! Is not supposed to hurt.”

“It stopped hurting, Saint.” He must have looked as confused as he felt, because Osiris continued in a voice much more clear than before, though he didn’t let up on his death grip. “Like cool water on a burn. Did you intend for that?”

“I would have, if you had told me it hurt,” Saint growled back. Just like Osiris to leave that part out! If he could feel pain it wasn’t a dissociation like he’d originally thought...probably. But then, as far as he knew, no one else had ever split their consciousness like Osiris had just done concurrently for more than a day straight. There was no telling what combination of factors had made him act like that.

Looking far more aware of his surroundings now, Osiris finally let go and rubbed at his own wrists. “Sometimes it takes the absence of pain to realize it was there at all. I don’t know that I have words to describe what that felt like, but it was the right choice.” He paused and took Saint’s hands again, far more gently this time. “Thank you.”

His momentary anger drained quickly, replaced by relief. “You are welcome. Do you feel anchored now?”

Osiris pursed his thin lips. “ _Anchored_ , yes. I did feel cast adrift. What you were doing is much like a meditation technique I’ve used before, but it hadn’t occurred to me it might be useful in a situation like this.”

Saint shrugged, smiling a little. “I did not know there could be a situation like this, so I am glad it worked. Perhaps if it happens again and I am not here, use Sagira as a focus?” Because there shouldn’t, Traveller willing, ever be a time when he was without Sagira. “But call me first,” he added quickly. Because what if it didn't work? Saint still had a whole battery of grounding methods he'd picked up from other Exos.

“I will,” Osiris assured him. There was a soft look in his eyes, one Saint couldn't quite place, but before he could ask about it Osiris frowned. “Why am I sitting on the floor instead of somewhere more comfortable?”

“Is because you can have your back to two walls,” Saint replied promptly. “Feels safer. But maybe now you will get some rest?” He stood up, translating their held hands to a grip to help Osiris to his feet as well. When he swayed slightly, Osiris frowned and steadied himself against Saint for a moment.

"If you don't eat something soon, you're going to regret it," Sagira said pompously from where she was hanging out on the nearest bookshelf with Geppetto.

“So do something useful and get us some food,” Saint shot back at her. Both of the Ghosts had the temerity to laugh (Sagira had a note of hysteria in hers, which was warranted) and whisked off to the kitchen to bang some plates together or something equally productive. It gave Osiris enough time to steady himself and take a seat at his little table. “You need a larger home or fewer books, my friend, and since I know you are not going to get rid of any books--”

“Just set them on the floor for now. I’ll deal with them later.” There, now there was enough space for the plates the Ghosts brought over, crackers and cheeses and fruits and a couple chunks of cured meat. Saint took a few bites, more to encourage Osiris than anything else, as he'd already eaten at the party beforehand. Osiris, for his part, wolfed the rest down. Sagira had been right, as usual.

Saint watched him carefully, but it looked like Osiris was back to his normal self now. Satisfied, he had to admit that he was starting to feel the effects of nonstop excitement and stifled a yawn. Osiris smiled wryly at him. “I see I am not the only one to be showing signs of fatigue. I ought to tell you to go home and sleep yourself.”

Saint-14 stilled, suddenly aware of his legs tangled together with Osiris’s under the table. His friend was many things, but careless with words was not one of them; in fact, he was downright imperative at most times. “But you know I am already thinking about sleep?” he asked hesitantly, inching his hand towards Osiris’s again. “Or you would rather I did not leave?”

Osiris’s eyes were shadowed now, but whether it was from exhaustion or some other strong emotion was hard to say. He was silent for a long, agonizing moment before his hand covered Saint’s. “It was selfish enough of me to want you here in the first place, when you could have been celebrating with the others.” And now those eyes were fire again, the same mesmerizing flame that had purified the blood-soaked battlefield and washed away the traces of Ether to leave only humanity in its wake. “I would be honored if you would stay, Saint.”

Well. In that case. “When you put it like that, I would be ungracious to refuse.” Truth to tell, he wouldn't really be comfortable leaving Osiris on his own right now anyway. There was no telling if the odd episode from earlier would come back, or if a dream would trigger it. He was under no illusion that there would be anything besides sleep--they were both too tired for that--but to say Saint wouldn't treasure it regardless would be untruthful. "I will stay," he said, just to be clear.

Half expecting Osiris to give him the couch (which would have involved displacing even more books), Saint couldn’t quite suppress a grin when Osiris led him to the bed, though it was followed with a halfhearted admonition to get his mind out of the gutter and Osiris was too tired for this and if Saint wanted an assignation he should have followed someone else home. But Osiris complained a lot all the time, and Saint paid it no mind as they snuggled up together. When Osiris closed his eyes, Saint pressed his mouth to Osiris’s forehead and whispered. “Sleep well, my fiery bird. You deserve it. I will be here with you until you awake.”

He wasn’t sure if Osiris heard him or not, but there was a smile on his face instead of pain lines, and that was more than enough.


End file.
